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In Covid-hit Beijing, funeral homes with sick workers struggle to keep up


BEIJING/SHANGHAI: Funeral homes across China’s Covid-19 capital BeijingA city of 22 million people, on Saturday struggled to meet requests for funeral and cremation services when workers and drivers tested positive for the novel. Coronavirus sick.
After declaring that omicron Tensions have waned and public protests are unprecedented against the President-supported Covid-free policy Xi JinpingChina abruptly changed its Covid management protocols more than a week ago.
Away from relentless testing, closures, and heavy travel restrictions, China is aligning with a world that has largely reopened to live with Covid.
China has asked its 1.4 billion people to care for mild symptoms at home unless symptoms become severe, as cities across China brace for the first waves of infections.
In Beijing, which has yet to report any Covid deaths since the policy change on December 7, sick workers attacked service personnel from restaurants and courier company to about a dozen funeral homes.
“We have fewer cars and less workers now,” an employee at Miyun Funeral Home told Reuters, adding that the demand for cremation services is increasing.
“We have many workers who have tested positive.”
It is unclear whether the struggle to meet the growing demand for cremation is due to the increase in Covid-related deaths.
At Huairou Funeral Home, the body had to wait three days before being cremated, an employee said.
“You can bring the body here yourself, have been busy lately.” Staff said.
China’s health authorities last reported Covid deaths on December 3. The Chinese capital reported one death for the last time on November 23.
However, China’s prestigious Caixin news agency reported on Friday that two veteran state media journalists had died after contracting Covid-19 in Beijing, among the first deaths. known since China abolished most of its Covid-free policies. And on Saturday, Caixin reported that a 23-year-old medical student in Sichuan had died of Covid on December 14.
However, the National Health Commission on Saturday reported no change to the official total of 5,235 Covid deaths.
According to the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), China’s abrupt lifting of extremely strict policies could cause more than a million deaths by 2023.
Had those policies been lifted earlier, such as on January 3 of this year, 250,000 people in China would have died, renowned Chinese epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said on Saturday.
Wu said that since December 5, the proportion of severe or critical Covid patients has dropped to 0.18% of reported cases, from 3.32% last year and 16.47% in 2018. 2020.
This shows that China’s death rate is falling, he said.
It is not clear whether the rate of critically ill people has changed since December 5. Conventional PCR testing and mandatory case reporting were eliminated on December 7.
‘NORMAL DEATH’
An employee at Dongjiao Funeral Home said: “There is a long line of hearses here and it’s hard to say when there will be empty seats.”
“Normal deaths,” the employee said when asked if those deaths were related to Covid.
The lack of reported Covid deaths in the past 10 days has stirred debate on social media over data disclosure, as well as a lack of statistics on hospital admissions and cases. heavy.
“Why can’t these stats be found? What’s going on? They don’t tally them or they simply don’t publish them?” a netizen on Chinese social media asked.
China stopped publishing asymptomatic cases from Wednesday, citing the lack of PCR testing in asymptomatic people making it difficult to accurately tally the total.
Official figures have become an unreliable guide as fewer tests are being carried out across the country following the easing of Covid-free policies.
In Shanghai, more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of Beijing, local education authorities on Saturday ordered most schools to hold online classes starting Monday, in response. with the worsening Covid infection situation across China.
In a sign of an impending staffing crisis, Shanghai Disney Resort said on Saturday that entertainment services could be reduced to a smaller workforce, although the theme park still working normally.

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